Corporate Social Responsibility….What it Means to Me

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an initiative close to my heart and one I advocate very seriously.

If you’re not entirely sure what it means, it’s a concept where corporations give back to society usually through corporate philanthropy or volunteerism programmes. If done with the right intentions, it’s an admirable movement that can make a big impact to worthwhile causes. However, it is also a sad fact that some organisations do it mainly for the positive publicity it might bring. After the programme ends, beneficiaries are often forgotten. That’s a shame because with their resources, businesses are really in an optimum position to make a huge difference.

Most times, these programmes are aligned to a company’s corporate values which is fine. After all, as long as they do it with pure intentions, the initiatives still help society. However, to make a sustainable change, let’s get to the root of what’s troubling mankind.

You might have heard of the phrase, “What’s the value of saving the clothes of a drowning man but not the man himself?” It simply means it’s better to get to the root of the problem and solve it once and for all.

How does this phrase apply to us? In society, we’re all drowning, not literally, but with diseases, pain and suffering. Financial aid helps in the short term but does not get to the bottom of the issue. Monetary donations, for example, may help a poor family feed themselves for a month but do not eradicate poverty in the long term.

A truly sustainable CSR programme would be education of the spirit. This is going beyond traditional CSR so it might be a foreign concept to some of you. Let me illustrate what I mean.

Rich or poor, there are things everyone goes through. These are birth, disease, old age and death.

I’m extremely thankful to my friends and teachers who inculcated the spirit of charity in me since I was a boy. We spent a lot of time helping people and providing food for the poor. More importantly, we educated people both spiritually about the soul and who they really are, and mentally to help them create a better life for themselves. At the end, the key lesson they walked away with is, material things will not make them happy. They realise the truth – that we’re not the material body but the spirit soul. Suddenly, something trivial like not having enough money to upgrade our car will not matter anymore because you realise materialism is just temporary.

That is true CSR to me. After all, social responsibility means caring for others.

As they say, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. It’s all about empowering society with the right tools and knowledge to improve their lives. By society, let’s not forget to include the animals we share the world with and the environment we live in.

So let’s all do our part in caring and only then can we make real sustainable change.
Yours sincerely,

Joseph Bismark
Group Managing Director
QI Group

The Story of the ‘One Sack of Rice’

Much is being said in the news lately about the “fiscal cliff” and its potential negative impact on the world economy. Then, there is decreased manufacturing output that may spell the beginning of another recession. A lot of people I’ve spoken to recently have voiced their fears over losing their jobs, or having to scale back. While I understand their worry, my reply to them is there’s really no point in worrying. Good times come and go.

Let me share a story from my childhood that illustrates this really well…

When I was younger and living in an ashram, we had to look for means of livelihood. The best option was farming and selling the harvested crop for money. I remember, vividly, the first year we started farming.

Most of us had no knowledge of farming whatsoever and had to rely on the advice and guidance from our elders. Being first-timers, we started with planting one sack of rice on one hectare of land. We toiled tirelessly to ensure our crop would grow healthily – fertilising, watering our crop, weeding bad growth, and making sure our crop was pest-free. It was back-breaking work but we soldiered on, hoping to get a good harvest. The end result surprised us all. We harvested a record 126 sacks of rice! Of course, we were beyond ourselves with joy, this being our first time.

We had been so excited to farm that we never thought of a plan after harvesting. It never occurred to us that we would need a barn in which to store our rice. Not having built one, we stored the sacks out in the open. We were literally sleeping on the sacks of rice! That’s how much of novices we were.

Rearing to go after our success, we waited for the next harvesting season. Wanting to double our harvest, we put in even more effort this time. With hard work, we had gotten 126 sacks the first time. So, double the effort equals double the gain, right? It doesn’t take a mathematician to come up with that formula. However, that year, the Philippines faced one of its worst typhoons ever. Not only was our growing crop destroyed, the 126 sacks were all washed away since they were not protected in a barn.

We were absolutely devastated and almost gave up. However, as hard as it was, we had to pick ourselves up and continue planting.

You might wonder why I’m telling you this story. The moral is to never give up. After we lost our entire crop, we did not want to plant again. What’s the point, we thought? Do we not think like this at times? The fact is many things in life are beyond our control. We didn’t know what the season will bring but we could control the amount of effort we put in. In fact, that is the only factor we can control.

It’s the same in business – there will be good and bad years but we never know when. The more pertinent question is, should we stop trying? We’re all like farmers – planting seeds of opportunity, weeding out bad growth and continually harvesting. Now the storm may be coming. This might be a bad year economically. However, complaining and worrying isn’t going to get us anywhere. Good and bad times are a part of life, like day and night.

What happens is not in our hands but one thing we can’t do is sit around and speculate. Just as farmers don’t stop planting, businessmen shouldn’t stop investing in an idea just because they’ve lost once.

Happy New Year!

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Bismark
Group Managing Director
QI Group